


Season2 Episode 8: A new chapter is written

by Heligena



Series: Season 2 Drabbles [8]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Betrayal, Comfort, Internal Conflict, Realisation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:22:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4269972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heligena/pseuds/Heligena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabble for episode 8 peeps.</p>
<p>Figured Carm would be pretty peeved that the library and all it's books had just disappeared no matter how nonchalant she might appear.</p>
<p>Also given my own little spin on why that happened.  <br/>Enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Season2 Episode 8: A new chapter is written

She loved books.  
Everything about them was tangible and yet insubstantial at the same time.   
Bound in leather, in the actual skin of something that had walked this land before being rudely cut down, they had a bloody history that she could detect in each ones piquant odour; an aroma that tickled the edges of the nose in the most wonderful of ways.   
...Tangible. 

And yet they were just ink and wood when it came down to it. Carvings of shapes blotted out with black that meant nothing to anyone until they filtered into the human mind. Stretched out their spines and running together in a bloodstream of memories, forming images that crawled across the brain and tapped once on each synapse. Totally dead until a certain pair of eyes looked at their pages and damn, could she relate to that.  
So...yeah, insubstantial.

Carmilla did her best not to flinch when the Ginger twin ran into the room and told them that the library had gone all Poltergeist and folded itself out of existence. Kept her voice neutral when she wondered aloud what might have caused it to do that. But inside her chest was shuddering at the thought of all those tangible-insubstantial works flying out of her grasp. All those beautiful horrifying words unexposed to the air.

Of course she’d read most of them during her time at Silas. Read some of them five times or more depending on her mood. But the thought that they weren’t just sitting there waiting for her, waiting for her gaze to shape-shift into whatever she wanted to mould them into sent shivers running through her already cold skin.

And when Laura slumped down on the end of the chaise longue looking so defeated and empty, she knew exactly what that feeling was like. That’s why she put down the remaining book in her hands though the urge to pull it to her chest was particularly powerful and wrapped an arm around the small blonde. Because she got it.

For all Laura’s bluster and...let’s face it, terrible taste in literature her brown eyes had always lit up when she’d picked up a copy of Harry Potter or that awful Gone series. It was the quietest Carmilla had ever seen the blonde, when they’d snuggled up together each with a book in hand, each wandering their own internal landscape while their hips still touched. Enough to ground them while exploring some alien terrain. And yes, she may have made a bunch of jokes about Laura’s taste over the last few months just to amuse herself but the truth was she’d always loved the fact that the younger girl’s passion for reading matched her own. It was a ridiculous and astonishing thing. As real and slight as the books themselves. And it made her feel almost human again.

Resting a palm on Laura’s forearm and allowing the blonde to lean back onto her arm, Carmilla pulled the girl into her as much as she could with her sister there. Offering her the sympathy and warmth she actually, surprisingly felt about what was happening on campus.

“How is a university supposed to function without a library and research equipment?”

Laura’s question seemed relatively composed; at least...for her but the brunette caught the tinge of loss cresting the tone of her voice when she asked it. 

It broke through fully when Mattie made her comment about the preserving the essentials though. Carmilla felt Laura’s spine straighten unconsciously at the callousness in her sister’s reply, felt it push back against her upper arm and she knew that her girlfriend wasn’t thinking about all the essays she was going to have to research without the requisite reading materials. She was remembering those few times they had studied together in the library. All the attempts Laura had made to work diligently before being distracted by fingers touching hers across an open page. Before they locked gazes and the words that had seemed so monumentally important just a moment ago, all those bibliographies and quotes faded into obscurity.

Their worth totally relative to the moment. To whatever her and Laura were feeling at the time.

It was only when the scream came that Carmilla finally realised the truth of what was happening. She’d heard it before of course and so was able to steel herself against that awful high-pitched sound despite the fact it hurt like hell. Doing her best to cover Laura’s ears from the blast, to keep her safe from it as much as she could she finally worked out exactly what Mattie was up to though. She wasn’t selling off the books to buffer the university’s finances although that was a plausible excuse. She was stripping the campus of the things that offered Carmilla the small pleasures she could find.

Killing Laura was clearly off the table, the brunette had made that pretty damn clear. So Mattie in her usual devious way was starting a campaign to take away anything else that might keep Carmilla there. God, she hadn’t thought anything of the news that the Dragon Tree in the Western field had been cut down two days ago. As far as she knew, she was the only one who sat underneath it so it wasn’t like there would be an outcry about that. But then the agricultural society’s livestock had been set free last night; the ones that kept Carmilla with her steady supply of blood. A student prank everyone said. But now she knew better. Now she saw exactly what Matska Belmonde was up to. She was cleansing the university grounds of her sister’s comforts. Burning and salting the ground so that she had nothing tying her here anymore and would be free to come back to the fold.

Despite her best intentions the brunette’s dark eyes began to sting as she snuck a glance up at that impassive face hovering above her. The small smirk written there was enough to confirm her suspicions though. And all Carmilla could do was cup her hand against the back of Laura’s head, trying to show Mattie exactly what was keeping her here.  
That all that mattered was her.  
Books or no books.


End file.
